As soon as he rushed into the Wormhole Gate passage, Joe Di barely had time to catch his breath before a gigantic insect, towering over a dozen zhang high, lunged at him.
Joe Di threw a punch, sending a spray of multicolored insect fluids splattering through the air, the sight enough to make one nauseous.
In just that brief moment, hundreds more insects surged forward, launching a frenzied assault on Joe Di.
To Joe Di, these insects were hardly worth a glance. He raised his hand and unleashed another punch, blasting a swath of bugs into fragments.
Only a few breaths had passed, yet the number of insects within the Wormhole Gate kept multiplying. Worse still, an endless tide of bugs was now pouring in from the direction of the Dao Domain.
Joe Di actually found himself wrapped up by the insects in this narrow space. Furious, he refused to escape even though he could. Instead, his Azure Veil Blade transformed into a curtain of blades, mowing down swathes of insects and sending them crashing to the ground.
From Joe Di's experience, once he slaughtered enough insects, the rest would usually scatter in panic.
But to Joe Di's shock, no matter how many he killed—even when the corpses nearly blocked the passage—the insects kept surging forward without end.
Joe Di also noticed that the corpses of the bugs he had slain were quickly devoured by those following behind.
After devouring their fallen kin, these insects would immediately grow noticeably stronger.
Joe Di knew things couldn't go on like this. He had to leave the Wormhole Gate. Once he got out, he could set up a grand trapping array.
But to Joe Di's horror, just as he prepared to leave, his spiritual sense was compressed to its absolute limit. At this point, not only was he unable to break through the insects' encirclement, even the blade aura of his Azure Veil Blade was being squeezed.
Joe Di was acutely aware of the strength of his spiritual sense. It had been tempered for thousands of years in the void rifts; even a Dao Fusion Realm expert's sense might not be as refined as his.
He'd been to this Wormhole Gate before—how could it possibly restrain his spiritual sense now?
While controlling the blade aura of his Azure Veil Blade to keep slaughtering the surrounding insects, Joe Di activated his Eye of the Way. Through countless gaps between the bugs, he spotted a creature with the head of a human and the body of an insect.
This creature kept emitting low, guttural roars, driving the endless swarm to hurl themselves at Joe Di regardless of death.
Joe Di's heart sank. The mass of insects flooding toward him didn't really trouble him; he was confident he could eventually slaughter them all and walk away unscathed.
But this Human-Headed Swarmfiend seemed terrifyingly powerful. Joe Di had never faced a Dao Fusion Realm expert before, though he'd killed a half-step Dao Fusion cultivator and could estimate their strength. This creature seemed even stronger than Dao Fusion.
Dao Fusion is the pinnacle of the Second Step. But if something is stronger than Dao Fusion—what does that mean?
Third Step? Joe Di was convinced this Human-Headed Swarmfiend wasn't yet a Third Step powerhouse, but it had likely touched the very edge of that realm.
Even in a one-on-one fight, Joe Di wasn't sure he could defeat this Human-Headed Swarmfiend. And with the creature commanding the swarm, every insect in the Swarmlands was surging toward him. If this kept up...
Joe Di didn't dare think further. He had to slaughter these insects as quickly as possible and then charge back to the Dao Domain.
Joe Di unleashed over ten thousand blades, arranging them into a third-tier Divine Strangle Blade Array.
The blade aura in the Wormhole Gate passage grew denser and denser. The endless tide of insects was shredded by the array as soon as they charged in.
Joe Di killed swiftly, but the incoming insects were just as fast. Those trapped in the blade array, if not instantly slain, would devour the remains of their fallen kin on the ground.
For more than ten days straight, Joe Di was pinned down by the endless swarm, unable to move an inch. No matter how solid his spiritual sense or how vast his Stellar Meridian, even he couldn't withstand this ceaseless slaughter.
Joe Di had lost track of how many insects he'd killed—he only knew that every moment, vast numbers of bugs were being cut down by his hand.
......
"Brother Shane, isn't this strange? For more than ten days, not a single insect has come through. What's going on?" At the mouth of the Wormhole Gate in the Dao Domain, a sallow-faced young man questioned the burly middle-aged man before him, his tone filled with puzzlement.
The middle-aged man, honest-looking, was none other than Shane Rivers, captain of the north district guards at the Wormhole Gate. He was just as perplexed. By all rights, there shouldn't have been ten days without an insect attack. Yet ever since the last battle, they'd waited more than ten days and not a single bug had appeared.
That alone was enough to seem abnormal.
"I think I smell the stench of insects being slaughtered," said an older male cultivator.
Upon hearing this, several others chimed in, "I thought it was just my imagination, but you all feel it too?"
Shane Rivers spoke gravely, "It seems we're not mistaken. I thought it was impossible before. After all, this Wormhole Gate is said to lead to the Swarmlands, and there are countless spatial wind blades and chaotic flows in between. Even if tens of thousands of insects were slaughtered inside, we shouldn't be able to smell it from here. Yet now we do. If this isn't an illusion, it means someone has killed hundreds of millions of bugs in the Wormhole Gate. That's simply..."
Shane Rivers trailed off, finding it all too incredible to believe.
......
Joe Di felt his whole body growing weak, waves of pain surging through his Spiritual Sea. He wondered if he could hold out any longer.
He resolved to endure for another half day. No matter what happened, he would retreat into the Ninth World to rest. Even if it meant exposing the Ninth World, he couldn't care less—if this continued, his Spiritual Sea might collapse entirely.
For more than half a month, he'd been alone in the Wormhole Gate, killing countless insects. Joe Di estimated that the number he'd slain must be in the hundreds of millions.
This chapter is not yet finished~.~ Please click 'Next Page' to continue reading the exciting story!
To Joe Di's surprise, just as he was about to retreat into the Ninth World to rest, the swarms of insects suddenly withdrew en masse. His spiritual sense lightened, and he realized that the human-headed, insect-bodied creature had already vanished.
Joe Di collapsed to the ground—he was injured, and the wounds to his Sea of Consciousness were severe.
What puzzled Joe Di was the intent of that human-headed, insect-bodied creature. Was it simply to send billions of insects for him to slaughter? And once he finished, they would just withdraw?
Joe Di shook his head. No matter what, he didn’t have the energy to ponder it further. At this moment, he could only be grateful that he had charged into the Wormhole Gate ahead of time. If he had still been in the Swarmlands, he doubted he’d ever have another chance to reach the wormhole.
Swallowing a few Dao Pills, Joe Di struggled to rush toward the Dao Domain. If he hadn’t encountered that human-headed, insect-bodied creature, he would have planned to set up a defensive trap array within the wormhole. But after seeing that monster, he knew that even a Seventh-Rank Guardian Array would be useless—especially since, without the Five Direction Banners, he couldn’t set up a seventh-rank array right now.
Thud! As Joe Di burst out of the wormhole, he collapsed once more, but let out a sigh of relief. He’d finally made it out. If he’d been swarmed by insects again, he truly wouldn’t have been able to escape.
Someone rushing out from the wormhole startled everyone outside.
Joe Di took out a few more pills and swallowed them, then waved to the cultivators guarding the wormhole outside. "Carry on with what you’re doing—I’m just passing through. I’ll rest for a moment and be on my way."
With that, Joe Di ignored everyone nearby and focused on recovering his vitality. Yet after half a day, he stopped—he realized this wasn’t a good place to recover. He’d have to leave the wormhole first.
"Brother Di, is that you?" a delighted voice called out to Joe Di.
(Only one chapter per day these days. Good night, friends!)